It is easy for those of us on the Left
to overreact to the latest Supreme Court decision on the appeal of
Citizens United v Federal Election Commission to overturn limits put on
corporate donations to political campaigns. After all, the actions of
our government make it all too obvious that corporate interests already
outweigh public interests. Wars, bailouts, deregulation, and the lack
of enforcement of current laws show that corporations count while
people do not. Currently, our government takes care of corporations
while expecting us to live off of their benevolence. Thus, what we have
is a democracy once removed.

For Corporations to keep their preferred status with our government,
they must silence potential critics and foes. This silencing is not
done through force by muting protesters, but by anaesthetizing and
inoculating the public from the virus of dissent by creating
dependence. Enough must be made dependent on corporations so as to
relegate criticism. We should note that if at this point, you replace
corporations with government, you get the Conservative definition of
Socialism. We should also note that Conservatives do not object to.the
inevitable authoritarian rule that comes from such dependence as long
as those in charge come from elite pockets of the private sector known
as "The Achievers." In addition, we should realize the danger that the
Left sees in this private sector authoritarianism. That danger is that
corporate rulers are not accountable to the public through elections.
The Conservative response is "Duh, that is why we call it a Republic."

The two parties that must be made dependent on corporations are
government officials and citizens. It is obvious how government
officials are made dependent on the government; it is through bribes
both legal and illegal. Legal bribes come from lobbyists and the
benefits they bestow. Other legal bribes come in the form of job offers
after one's government service is finished. But perhaps the primary way
our elected officials were made dependent on Corporations is through
campaign financing. If candidates cannot not win elections without
corporate financing while they can win without public financing, then
corporations own the candidates--regardless of their political party
affiliation. Note that votes are secondary to selecting our Congressmen
and Presidents because the voters are so blindly committed to
supporting a 2 party system.

Corporate ownership of our candidates has been threatened in two ways
this millennium. The first threat came through campaign finance reform
that "limited" what corporations could provide. The second threat came
came in the 2004 Democratic primary races. Howard Dean was raising
substantial support from individuals through the internet. If
candidates became financially dependent on the public, they would no
longer be under corporate control. Thus we have the just recent lawsuit
and Supreme Court decision that removed the anchor that weighed down
and kept corporate ownership of candidates from soaring.

This Supreme Court decision neither introduced anything new nor did it
provide an ominous sign for the future. Rather, this Supreme Court
decision merely nipped a possible problem in the bud; it stopped
citizen influence over elected officials before it could get started.
With a compliant and conforming electorate, all that is left for
corporations to control government is to put them on the payroll. Once
that is done, government will then pass the necessary legislation that
allows a net profit to result from this venture. We should also note
that once corporations can up the ante in campaign contributions, the
resulting rising costs of such campaigns will remove them from
depending on individual contributions--though such contributions will
always be accepted in order to boost the egos of the contributors by
making them feel like they were a significant part of the election..

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Curt Day is a religious flaming fundamentalist and a political extreme moderate. Curt's blogs are at http://flamingfundamentalist.blogspot.com/ and http://violenceorsurvival.blogspot.com/